Shattered Sanity

(Northwatch Grounds, Royo’s POV, A few seconds ago)

Royo was one of the four Second Years Cyrus had brought with him to defend the Northwatch Grounds, and he had been busy binding Jeff’s ankles when the lightning struck.

KRAKOOOOOOOOOM!

”The hell?!”

Royo cursed, as the sheer force of the impact made his entire body jolt while every hair across his arms suddenly stood upright.

He had experienced powerful Storm spells before.

One of his best friends at House Aureate was a storm elementalist, which was why he fought against storm spells often, and yet, he had never felt anything quite like this.

The lightning that Riven had summoned just now, exceeded the strength of even an inferno rank warrior, and the moment it hit the ground, it caused the entire surrounding to tremble.

Royo had felt it.

The impact travelled through the earth beneath his knees, while the surrounding air became so heavily saturated with Storm Aether that his exposed skin continued tingling several seconds after the explosion.

”What the fuck was that...?”

Royo muttered, as he abandoned the rope beside Jeff and hurriedly pushed himself upright.

Smoke was rising through the rain.

For several moments, he could barely make out anything beyond it, although as the downpour gradually thinned the dark cloud hanging over the road, Royo finally saw the three people who had been standing near the point of impact.

One of them remained standing.

The other two were on the ground.

”Cyrus?!”

Royo’s expression changed immediately.

Gary Ironveil was writhing in the mud with portions of his uniform burned away, while Cyrus looked even worse, his limbs spasming uncontrollably as smoke continued rising from his scorched body.

Riven Dawnriver stood between them unharmed.

’How did he summon a spell so powerful?!’

Royo wondered, as he immediately abandoned Jeff and sprinted towards his injured companions.

There was no time to think about how Dawnriver had suddenly produced an attack powerful enough to leave Cyrus in that condition, nor did Royo particularly care whether it had been intentional.

Black Week permitted violence.

It permitted ambushes, beatings, imprisonment and attacks that would have earned students months of punishment during normal Academy life.

However, it did not permit this.

”Have you lost your fucking mind, Dawnriver?!”

Royo screamed, as two of the other Second Years noticed what had happened and rushed forward alongside him.

Riven did not answer.

Royo continued running until he was close enough to properly see him, only for something about Dawnriver’s appearance to make his pace instinctively falter.

The hairs across his arms rose again.

It wasn’t merely the Storm Aether.

Riven’s soaked hair floated unnaturally above his head while bluish-purple electricity crawled across his body, occasionally jumping towards Sky-Cleaver before disappearing along the ancient halberd’s blade.

His eyes were worse.

There were no green irises staring back at Royo anymore, as both eyes had become filled with bluish-purple light while tiny branches of lightning twisted continuously beneath their surface.

However, it was the expression accompanying those eyes that made Royo’s stomach tighten.

There was no recognition of the people approaching him, as those glowing eyes seemed incapable of distinguishing anything beyond whether someone was a threat.

’Something’s wrong with him....’

Royo thought, as his instincts screamed at him to stop approaching despite Cyrus and Gary lying helplessly only a short distance ahead.

However, his housemates needed the help, and so, Royo forced himself another step forward.

”Get away from them, Dawnriver! You could’ve fucking killed them!” Royo shouted, as he hardened his voice and hoped the familiar authority of a senior student might finally snap the First Year out of whatever state he had entered.

However, all it did was antagonize Riven even more, as Riven simply smiled in response.

’The fuck?’

Royo thought, as his feet stopped cold looking at that unnatural smile.

However, the smile lasted barely a moment before Riven disappeared.

WHOOSH!

Royo’s eyes widened.

There had been no incantation.

No visible preparation or warning from the Aether around him.

One moment, Riven had been standing several meters away with Sky-Cleaver held loosely within his fingers.

The next, he was gone.

’Where did he...?’

Royo wondered, as something suddenly changed within his vision.

The world tilted.

For some reason, the ground appeared to be moving closer.

His body remained standing several feet away.

Royo stared at it.

A fountain of blood erupted from the open stump between its shoulders, spraying several feet into the pouring rain before cascading down across the front of his Academy uniform.

For one incomprehensible moment, Royo simply watched.

’Huh...?’

Royo wondered, as his severed head struck the muddy ground and rolled several times before eventually coming to a stop with one side of his face pressed against the cold earth.

Only then did the pain begin registering through what remained of his consciousness, arriving several seconds too late as his eyes trembled and desperately attempted to understand why he was suddenly staring at the ground from such an unnatural angle.

Several feet away, his own headless body remained standing for another moment, blood spraying violently from the open stump between its shoulders before its knees buckled and the entire corpse collapsed forward into the mud.

SPLASH!

Royo stared at his own body in incomprehension, yet before his fading mind could process what he was seeing, his gaze drifted beyond it towards the two Second Years who had charged alongside him.

They were already dead.

One lay several feet away with his body sliced completely apart across the waist, his upper and lower halves separated across the muddy ground as blood and entrails spilled freely into the rainwater surrounding him.

The other had suffered an even more horrifying fate, as his body had been split vertically straight down the middle, leaving two grotesque halves collapsed beside one another while blood rapidly pooled between them.

There had been no screaming.

No desperate struggle for survival that would suggest it was even a fight.

All three of them had simply died.

’How...?’

Royo wondered, as darkness gradually began creeping into the edges of his vision while his mind desperately searched through the final moments before his death.

He remembered Riven standing in front of them one moment, and not the other, but after that, there was nothing.

Royo had not seen Riven move.

He had not seen Sky-Cleaver swing, nor had he caught so much as a shadow travelling through the rain before his head was separated from his shoulders.

That was absurd.

Royo was a Second Year at the Imperial Academy, with an entire year of combat training separating him from the First Year standing before him, yet he had died without even possessing the ability to perceive the attack that killed him.

’How did this happen...?’

Royo wondered, as even the question became increasingly difficult to hold onto while the rain continued falling against his face.

Some distant part of his fading mind understood that Riven had killed all three of them, since there was simply nobody else nearby who could have done it, yet even with the evidence scattered grotesquely across the ground before him, Royo could not understand why.

This was the Imperial Academy, where even during Black Week there were rules that every student understood, as they could fight, break bones, steal territory, humiliate their enemies and drag one another into prison, yet deliberately taking another student’s life crossed the one boundary none of them were supposed to approach.

Riven knew those rules.

Yet three Second Years had just died without even realizing they were under attack.

Royo’s vision continued darkening as the sound of the pouring rain gradually faded alongside everything else, leaving him with nothing except the horrifying realization that there had been no fight, no opportunity to defend himself and no final mistake he could blame for his death.

One moment, he had been standing before Riven.

The next, he was staring at his own corpse.

’Is this really how it’s going to end...?’

Royo thought, as the last traces of consciousness finally disappeared and the Northwatch Grounds faded into darkness.